It's a reach, but Hillary Clinton is within striking distance of being the first Democratic presidential nominee since 1976 of winning Texas. It's a reach, but she could also win equally red Utah. Also, Arizona. Perhaps more than anything else you'll read in these next 15 days, the fact these three states are even remotely competitive epitomizes the 2016 presidential election for Republicans right now: Realistically, at this moment, Donald Trump has almost zero chance of winning. The flipside, of course, is that Clinton has a chance of winning -- by a landslide. In fact, in many polls, she's getting slightly more support at this point in the election than Barack Obama was four years ago. (Philip Bump / The Washington Post) Let's briefly do the math to explain why Trump's chances of winning are approaching zero. Put simply, he needs to win more states than Mitt Romney won in 2012 to win the presidential election. That's because Romney got 206 electoral votes, and you need 270 to win. If the election were held today, Trump would not get more electoral votes than Romney. He'd only get 180. That's based on The Fix's Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake's new electoral map rankings, which show the traditional swing states of Virginia, Colorado, Florida and North Carolina leaning Democratic and traditional red states not the conservative bulwarks they once were. Texas, for example, moves from the "solid Republican" to "lean Republican" state because the RealClearPolitics average shows Trump ahead by just 4.6 points. That's a minimal lead in a state as red as Texas: Romney won it by 12 points. Utah, meanwhile, is suddenly a "toss up" state thanks in part to the third-party independent candidate, Evan McMullin (a Utah native and Mormon), polling surprisingly well and possibly taking away some Trump votes. (Utah is not a friendly state to Trump to begin with.) To sum up, Trump is on pace for a historically bad performance. And we're left shaking our heads at the craziness of it all. Texas, y'all. Texas. So what's Trump doing about it? Well, his campaign manager is acknowledging they are losing. "We are way behind," Kellyanne Conway said on NBC's "Meet The Press" on Sunday. It was an astonishing acknowledgment, Cillizza writes, from a campaign that has so far refused to acknowledge that reality. Trump . . . is not so keen on acknowledging the state of the race. He's spent the past few days predicting wins in states we think are more likely to go Democratic and bashing the media for apparently only showing polls where Clinton is ahead. | 